skateboard fracture << scaphoid fracture

While chatting with a physician friend of mine this week, he mentioned – I forget just why – a “scaphoid fracture,” a common break of a small bone in the wrist. The room was noisy and I thought he said “skateboard fracture.” The injury is, interestingly, a typical outcome of skateboard falls, caused by the board rider reaching out to catch him/herself on the way down.

I’m not the only one to make this apt substitution. A medical records transcriber admits to the same hearing error:

Confession on a forum: “I was just typing up a letter and put ‘The patient had a skateboard fracture ’ then figured there is no such thing as a skateboard fracture. Turns out it’s a scaphoid fracture. Lol.”

“Skateboard fracture” for “scaphoid fracture” may have taken hold in some speech communities. Here are three web pages that may be supporting examples:

Orthopedics Q/A site: “He declared a likely skateboard fracture, with potentially other injuries, and put me in a splint.”

Automobile forum: “ I go flying and land on my hands. My left wrist hurt a lot. But nevertheless I got up to get the wrench. I torqued my wheels before I even got ice for what I learned a day later was a Navicular ( skateboard) fracture in my left wrist.”

Parent forum: “My BIL came off his bike quite a number of years ago and broke his collar bone plus had what they call a skateboard fracture on his hand. ”